Letter from New York

The Gentleman Grafter

Profiles of unlicensed New York street vendors are not the usual fare of this magazine, but just such a story, by Howard Kaplan, about the master pitchman Joe Ades—a 72-year-old native of England whose line at the time was potato peelers—appeared in May 2006 (“The Gentleman Grafter”). The story packed a kicker or two: married previously several times, Joe was living with fourth wife Estelle in a prime Park Avenue eight-room apartment; he dined at the finest restaurants (such as Jean Georges), often coming straight from work and parking his hand truck, with all his gear (including a slab of Lucite that served as his worktable, and storage bins filled with produce) on it, just inside the restaurant doors; when pitching the peeler, he typically wore a suit by Chester Barrie of England, a shirt from his Turnbull & Asser collection, a puffy pocket-square, and a tie whose knot never slipped from its grip on the Adam’s apple. As Joe liked to say in reference to the peeler, a Swiss-made import he sold for $5: “Never underestimate a small amount of money.”

This Postscript, sadly, is a valediction. On February 3, 2009, The New York Times reported the news of Joe’s sudden death, at age 75. His beloved Estelle pre-deceased him in 2007. Joe kept working until the last—and selling as many peelers as ever, even as the economy started to tank. (“Grafting is completely unaffected by slumps or booms,” the maestro observed.) Twice a year, Joe had major shipments of peelers delivered to the apartment. Many boxes of peelers remain—but may yet find their way to market. It was long Joe’s wish that his now 51-year-old daughter, Ruth, a certified teacher who lives in Manhattan and who did some grafting in her younger days, would carry on after him. Joe was a spender as well as an earner, and more than once he said to Ruth, not entirely tongue in cheek, “There won’t be any money left, so you’d better learn the peeler, dear.” His legions of followers will be pleased to know that his daughter intends to learn the peeler.